New Scanner Helps Fight Sight Loss

New equipment for the Clinical Measurement department at Royal Derby Hospital is helping to save lives thanks to your fantastic donations.

A new ‘Hockey stick’ transducer has been funded for the department to help the team perform ultrasound scans of the small temporal arteries to assess for any evidence of a condition called Giant Cell Arteritis.

In Giant Cell Arteritis, arteries can become inflamed and If the artery which supplies the eye is affected, then this can cause sight loss in that eye.

Rob James, Clinical Vascular Scientist at Royal Derby Hospital, “It’s a very fiddly scan given that these arteries are often quite small. Previously we are using the same equipment that we would use for arteries that are much larger in. The new probe will also be lighter and easier to hold, giving us much more accuracy and control over it whilst providing high quality images at the same time.

this new specialist ultrasound probe will really help us to improve to a higher level of diagnostic accuracy – improving patient care and outcome. But it will also really help our sonographers reduce their risk of repetitive strain injury at the same time – a factor which is often overlooked.